Associate Technical Director, AI - Unannounced Game

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Job Description:

At Blizzard, we craft genre-defining games and legendary worlds for all to share.  Through unparalleled creativity and storytelling, we create immersive universes and iconic characters that are beloved across platforms, borders, backgrounds, and generations - only made possible by building a work environment that nurtures the artistry of game development and unleashes the aspirations of our people. 

We are seeking an experienced game AI engineering leader to help populate our game with compelling inhabitants, present players with interesting challenges, and bring our world to life. If you are interested in collaborating with designers and artists to craft creature behaviors, we need you!

This role is anticipated to be a hybrid work position, with some work on-site and some work-from-home. The home studio for this role is Irvine, CA.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with other discipline directors to establish, drive, and deliver on game AI vision and development roadmap.

• Support creature designers to bring their vision to life, creating an interesting, complex, and challenging world population at scale.

• Drive architecture and content creation toolset to ensure team productivity and high quality of results.

• Ensure engineering team is collaborating with developers and other gameplay teams to understand their needs and develop an aligned technical approach.

• Lead and mentor a team of game AI engineers, providing guidance and fostering a collaborative, innovative environment.

• Direct responsibility for technical quality of AI implementation.

Requirements

• 12+ years of experience in game engineering, with at least 4 years in a leadership or managerial role within the video game industry or a related field.

• Proven ability to lead and inspire a team, manage multiple projects, and collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams.

• Experience delivering AI behaviors for a modern, large-scale game world.

• Experience shipping at least one AAA title.

• Able to understand and write effective and efficient C++ code.

• Communicates ideas clearly, learns from others, and gives meaningful feedback.

• Skilled at performance analysis and code optimization.

• Interested in and/or plays  a variety of video game genres and titles.

Extra Points

• Experience developing systems for modern online multiplayer games.

• Experience creating developer toolsets for large scale game productions.

Your Platform

Best known for iconic video game universes including Warcraft®, Overwatch®, Diablo®, and StarCraft®, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. (www.blizzard.com), a division of Activision Blizzard, which was acquired by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), is a premier developer and publisher of entertainment experiences. Blizzard Entertainment has created some of the industry’s most critically acclaimed and genre-defining games over the last 30 years, with a track record that includes multiple Game of the Year awards. Blizzard Entertainment engages tens of millions of players around the world with titles available on PC via Battle.net®, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android.

Our World

Activision Blizzard, Inc., is one of the world's largest and most successful interactive entertainment companies and is at the intersection of media, technology and entertainment. We are home to some of the most beloved entertainment franchises including Call of Duty®, World of Warcraft®, Overwatch®, Diablo®, Candy Crush™ and Bubble Witch™. Our combined entertainment network delights hundreds of millions of monthly active users in 196 countries, making us the largest gaming network on the planet!

Our ability to build immersive and innovate worlds is only enhanced by diverse teams working in an inclusive environment. We aspire to have a culture where everyone can thrive in order to connect and engage the world through epic entertainment. We provide a suite of benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being for ‘Every World’ - we’ve got our employees covered!

The videogame industry and therefore our business is fast-paced and will continue to evolve. As such, the duties and responsibilities of this role may be changed as directed by the Company at any time to promote and support our business and relationships with industry partners.

We love hearing from anyone who is enthusiastic about changing the games industry. Not sure you meet all qualifications? Let us decide! Research shows that women and members of other under-represented groups tend to not apply to jobs when they think they may not meet every qualification, when, in fact, they often do! We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment and strongly encourage you to apply.

We are committed to working with and providing reasonable assistance to individuals with physical and mental disabilities. If you are a disabled individual requiring an accommodation to apply for an open position, please email your request to accommodationrequests@activisionblizzard.com. General employment questions cannot be accepted or processed here. Thank you for your interest.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status, among other characteristics

Rewards

We provide a suite of benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being for ‘Every World’ - we’ve got our employees covered!  Subject to eligibility requirements, the Company offers comprehensive benefits including:

• Medical, dental, vision, health savings account or health reimbursement account, healthcare spending accounts, dependent care spending accounts, life and AD&D insurance, disability insurance;
• 401(k) with Company match, tuition reimbursement, charitable donation matching;
• Paid holidays and vacation, paid sick time, floating holidays, compassion and bereavement leaves, parental leave;
• Mental health & wellbeing programs, fitness programs, free and discounted games, and a variety of other voluntary benefit programs like supplemental life & disability, legal service, ID protection, rental insurance, and others;
• If the Company requires that you move geographic locations for the job, then you may also be eligible for relocation assistance.

Eligibility to participate in these benefits may vary for part time and temporary full-time employees and interns with the Company.  You can learn more by visiting https://www.benefitsforeveryworld.com/.